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There have been penalties for those who looked the other way when Epstein was convicted of child sex offences and decided to maintain relationships with the financier — but not for the British ambassador to Washington, reveals SOLOMON HUGHES
Ypres revealed the true nature of World War I
JOHN ELLISON looks back 100 years ago to the mid-point of the Ypres offensive and the beginnings of peace
Labour’s new Treasury unit will ‘challenge unnecessary regulation’ by forcing nominally independent bodies like Ofwat to bend to business demands — exactly what Iain Anderson’s corporate clients wanted, writes SOLOMON HUGHES
DR DYLAN MURPHY looks at a Big Brother Watch report which exposes the government as an enabler of DWP secret spying on benefit claimants
The EU faces a critical choice: will it remain in the shadow of an increasingly unreliable US ally, or will it forge its own path in a multilateral world where co-operation with China is essential, asks MARC VANDEPITTE as leaders meet for the EU-China Summit
A lot of discussion about how the left should currently organise – including debate on whether the Green Party is a useful vehicle for advance – runs the risk of refusing to engage with or learn from the reasons the left was defeated previously, argues KEVIN OVENDEN
For Egypt trade trumps the Israeli genocide of the Palestinians, but how long can the country’s ‘misleaders’ – and others in the region – continue their indifference against the popular will of their own people, asks ROGER McKENZIE
A century ago today was the mid-point of the third British Ypres offensive on the western front. It was not then popularised as the Battle of Passchendaele, because the taking of that pulverised former village (by Canadian soldiers) was more than six weeks away.
Ordered by King George V’s friend and working-class enemy commander-in-chief Sir Douglas Haig but carried out — with vast casualties — by his troops, the campaign began on July 31 (after 10 days of artillery bombardment) and was concluded on November 10, without any confession of guilt for another bloody failure.
Haig had believed that the German armies were close to breaking point, that attacks aimed at extending the Ypres bulge at the front would pierce the German lines, and enable the British armies to swing northwards and on to the Belgian coast.
More from this author
The summer of 1950 saw Labour abandon further nationalisation while escalating Korean War spending from £2.3m to £4.7m, as the government meekly accepted capitalism’s licence and became Washington’s yes-man, writes JOHN ELLISON
JOHN ELLISON looks back at Labour’s opportunistic tendency, when in office, to veer to the right on policy as well as ideological worldview
JOHN ELLISON recalls the momentous role of the French resistance during WWII
JOHN ELLISON looks back to the 1974 general election in Greece which freed the people from the oppressive military junta
